Not long ago, I discovered Feedburner (thanks Ana!). To my surprise, my blog’s total number of subscribers was higher than I knew.
Recently, I’ve noticed the numbers fluctuating a bit. This means that some folks have tried on my blog for size, and decided it didn’t fit.
If you are one of those people, this letter is addressed to you.
Dear Ex-Subscriber,
I would like to thank you for subscribing to Racy Romance Reviews. I hope you enjoyed your stay. I try my best to provide informative, thoughtful, and sometimes amusing content about romance novels. I’m glad you experienced some of it before moving on.
I know there are many other romance blogs out there, all trying to do the same thing I am. I don’t know how you found my blog, out of the hundreds of others, but I count myself privileged to have been a wave you surfed, if only for a brief while.
I wish you all the best in your online travels, and please know that my door is always open to your I.P. address.
Fondly,
Jessica of Racy Romance Reviews
PS. You might be interested to know that Racy Romance Reviews still has what I consider a perfect number of subscribers. There are so many benefits to being small, really. I get to know my commenters extremely well, and our discussions are very in-depth. Instead of those bigger blogs with a clockmaker web mistress who winds things up and lets them unfold without her intervention, I get to be very hands on. I’m very proud to say that most of my comment threads wouldn’t get past the third comment if I didn’t step in there and goose them. In fact, to really grow Racy Romance Reviews, I’d probably have to allow advertising. Sure, it starts with a little eHarlequin ad in the sidebar, and before you know it, I’m being flown to book signings on cruise ships and getting free e-readers for me and all my friends. I mean, who wants that?
PPS. I know my blog is not for everyone. I hate to sound even slightly immodest, modesty being one of my many excellent qualities, but my superior intelligence and vast amounts of knowledge do tend to dictate the kinds of posts you will find here at Racy Romance Reviews. Perhaps you weren’t aware of the level of education and insight that’s required to really get the most out of Racy Romance Reviews? I’m afraid my subscribers can’t just be casual lurkers. You see, I’m taking my readers on an amazing intellectual journey, and only the brightest and most dedicated will make it to the end. I am truly sorry you couldn’t travel with us, but I am sure you will find a web home that better suits your cognitive capacities, such as they are.
PPPS. Just curious: where have you been spending your time? Not that I miss you. Not at all. Did I mention that we here at Triple R are on an amazing intellectual journey? Yeah, and we’re loving it. Lov. Ing. It.
PPPPS. You know what? I hate you. Tell me who you are so I can unsubscribe from your blog. Bitch.
PPPPPS. [Gasp] Oh my God. Did I just type that? I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I take it all back. But please, do me one favor, before you leave forever:
Just tell me when I lost you. I know my posts are long winded to the point of asphyxiation (Holy hell this post is already 630 words. What is wrong with me?), that I am boring as all get out (wait — a cool blogger would write “boring as fuck”. She’d swear more. Dammit.) , and that my attempts at satire are Epic Fails, but I can change!!! Just tell me what it is you have found on those other blogs. What do they have that I don’t? I can post pictures of handsome well endowed metrosexuals in skimpy underwear! I can! I know –I can do more contests. My contests are crap. I realize that now: used books nobody wants. I’ll have better contests, new books, gift certificates, you name it!
And, uh, I can do memes! Uhhhh… Thursday Thirteen — 13 things I like — um — you! you! you! you! you! you! you! you! you! you! you! you! Baby, it’s youuuuuuuuuuu!
PPPPPPS. I wish you all the best in your online travels, and please know that my door is always open to your I.P. address.
Fondly,
Jessica of Racy Romance Reviews
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#1 by Janice on January 25, 2009 - 4:20 pm
Hah! Funniest “Dear John” reader for the blogosphere. Now I’ll return to semi-lurking, not out of lack of interest, but because I’m usually reading your posts a bit behind the times.
#2 by JenB on January 25, 2009 - 6:34 pm
I get the most visitors when I post pics of nekkid men. My friends only love me for my pr0n. *sniffle*
Keep up the great work!
#3 by KristieJ on January 25, 2009 - 6:48 pm
Oh my, that WAS funny – I’ll be chuckling over it for a while
#4 by willaful on January 25, 2009 - 7:05 pm
Aw, now I wanna unsubscribe so you’ll be talking to ME! ME ME ME!
#5 by Laura Vivanco on January 25, 2009 - 7:57 pm
Snort!
P.S. your postscripts make me feel so much better about my penchant for writing very long footnotes.
P.P.S. I don’t know if’d turn up in those Feedburner numbers because I follow RRR via a Yahoo feed. Or does Yahoo use Feedburner? I am almost clueless about these things.
P.P.P.S. You wouldn’t want those free ereaders anyway, because they were Sony ereaders and, as you explained so eloquently, you have very good reasons for preferring a Kindle.
P.P.P.P.S You wouldn’t be able to go on cruises during term-time anyway.
P.P.P.P.P.S Re “I’m taking my readers on an amazing intellectual journey, and only the brightest and most dedicated will make it to the end,” I can feel my self-esteem re-inflating as I type. I will never, ever, drop you from my blog feed (even if I don’t understand the technical side of things).
#6 by Sarah Frantz on January 25, 2009 - 8:32 pm
LOL! I actually read this out loud to my husband. AND the comments!
But the Sony is verra verra nice! 
#7 by Lori on January 25, 2009 - 8:44 pm
Now I don’t feel so bad about being longwinded (I mean having a lot of very interesting, important things to contribute).
#8 by Peggy Pennell on January 25, 2009 - 8:53 pm
OK, I know nothing about feeds or subscribing. I’ve got a bunch of blogs I check out every other day or so, I just have the sites bookmarked. So how does that work for you? How does that count, I mean, each time I visit this site counts as a what? And am I reading all my blogs the hard way?
Geez, I’m gonna have to Google this topic and maybe learn something, talk about your damn journeys!
#9 by carolyn jean on January 25, 2009 - 9:39 pm
LOL. Yeah, what she said, you cretins! Get out of here. Who needs you? Jessica doesn’t, as you can see.
Oh, boo hoo. You have nowhere to go now? No blog to call your own and lovingly visit every day now that you have unsubscribed from this one? TOO BAD!!
Because let me tell you this: Jessica would never stoop to salacious and exciting polls about masturbation habits of female erotica readers like the one that just closed at THRILLIONTH PAGE, or illustrate her posts with plenty of pictures as a way of pandering to the likes of you. Or do pathetic things like put up a robust sidebar full of the 90 latest posts in blogland to appeal to jumpers, so that you are always in the know, like THRILLIONTH PAGE. Or, say, invoke the names of beloved celebrities like Joss Whedon (see feed at right) in posts to get you to look. Or have exclusive interviews with the undisputed king of literary gay porn.
Yes, you may be disgusted by RRR, but it doesn’t mean you have to go somewhere like the THRILLIONTH PAGE to fill that empty place inside you! Don’t do it! Noooooooo!
#10 by Keishon on January 25, 2009 - 11:17 pm
This was too funny!!!!
PS: I really enjoy your blog and so keep up the good work.
PPS: I will add you to my blogroll as soon as I finish typing this comment out.
PPPS: I don’t even use Google Reader.
#11 by Heloise on January 26, 2009 - 12:33 am
“You see, I’m taking my readers on an amazing intellectual journey, and only the brightest and most dedicated will make it to the end. I am truly sorry you couldn’t travel with us, but I am sure you will find a web home that better suits your cognitive capacities, such as they are.”
I just like to read this and re-read it over and over. Are you sure you aren’t my best friend from college? Woman’s Studies major who now is a public defense lawyer in New York City. Or so I thought?
#12 by Jessica on January 26, 2009 - 7:05 am
Peggy Pennell wrote:
Yes, you are doing it the hard way. If you use a reader, such as Google Reader, all the new posts in all the blogs you frequent show up on your screen in a clickable list. Jane at Dear Author did a very helpful posts on this a few months ago.
Or try reading this:
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2009/01/google-reader-for-beginners.html
@ carolyn jean:
Very funny — but your little diabolical plan didn’t work this time, CJ — you needed to link to your blog for maximum theft of my readers. Hah!
@ Sarah Frantz: Yeah, well, I still have my, erm, integrity. And if I am very patient and wait a few months, my kindle may eventually show up, too. Dammit.
JenB wrote:
What is pr0n, BTW?
Is it a way to type “porn” without attracting weird web surfers?
Laura Vivanco wrote:
Yes, see, I used to go by the Google numbers only, but Feedburner gives you the subscribers from every possible source, including Yahoo, so I actually had 3 times the number of subscribers I thought I had. (not a lot in the scheme of things, but still, delightful to know!)
I can help you set up an account, I think.
#13 by Laura Vivanco on January 26, 2009 - 7:21 am
If you use a reader, such as Google Reader, all the new posts in all the blogs you frequent show up on your screen in a clickable list. Jane at Dear Author did a very helpful posts on this a few months ago.
Yes, it’s here.
—-
What is pr0n, BTW?
Your guess was right. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about this usage:
Pr0n is Leet slang for pornography. This is a deliberately inaccurate spelling/pronunciation for porn, where a zero is often used to replace the letter O. It is sometimes used in legitimate communications (such as email discussion groups, Usenet, chat rooms, and internet web pages) to circumvent language and content filters, which may reject messages as offensive or spam. The word also helps prevent search engines from associating commercial sites with pornography—which might result in unwelcome traffic. Pr0n is also sometimes spelled backwards (n0rp) to further obscure the meaning to potentially uninformed readers.
—–
I can help you set up an account, I think.
Get thee behind me, Jessica! I shall not yield to the temptation to spend even more time on the internet. But talking about temptation and stats, I’m assuming you know about Technorati? At the moment it’s giving RRR an “authority” level of 32, which is an indication of how many other bloggers have linked to you, although I have a feeling that some blogs and websites are missed by Technorati.
#14 by Jill D. on January 26, 2009 - 10:04 am
LMAO!! Jessica, that was so funny. I especially liked you PPPPS when your true emotions rained their ugly, little head. It cracks me up because I have wanted to say the exact same thing a time or two.
On a side note, I didn’t know about feedburner. I am going to check it out. I just use Google reader and know how many subscribers I have there.
Also, I haven’t ever heard of Technorati. Hmmm, sounds intersting. I’ll have to look into it.
#15 by Margie on January 26, 2009 - 11:08 am
Now I feel like I should subscribe. I enjoy your blog, but I’ve just lurked. I want to be part of the “intellectual journey”, too!
#16 by Maya M. on January 26, 2009 - 11:27 am
*snerk*
I’ve barely figured out how to post ultra-rudimentary thoughts on my blog, and live in complete and blissful ignorance of feeds and burns and reads and twits. At some point I guess I’ll have to educate myself but for now, I’m perfectly happy to rest on my laurels of having even figured out what a blog is…
#17 by Ana on January 26, 2009 - 12:58 pm
Ahem.
You know, Jessica… there are days when Feedburner is “broken” and it just doesn’t “capture” the number of subscribers correctly but they are still there – this is how it fluctuates, they are having a lot of problems lately with google feedfetcher so you maybe be “losing” subscribers there – except you aren’t. They are still there, Feedburner is just not counting them. *wink*
#18 by Nicola O. on January 26, 2009 - 2:59 pm
ROFL. I too have concluded that to drive my numbers, I would need to post more erotica reviews and nekkid pictures.
#19 by Tumperkin on January 26, 2009 - 3:24 pm
hehe! V amusing!
I was tempted to start getting some stats when we did the HQ pastiche and CJ told me she was getting – well, quite a lot of hits. (As far as I was concerned, it may as well have been just a couple of hits as no-one left comments – which is my only gauge of how many people visit my li’l blog).
But if I started counting, I think I could become quite obsessive about it so maybe I’ll leave well alone…..
#20 by Jill Sorenson on January 26, 2009 - 5:22 pm
I don’t subscribe to any blogs. I pretend I’m defying technology, but the truth is I just don’t know any better.
Thanks Laura. I enjoyed learning about pr0n!
#21 by Laura Vivanco on January 26, 2009 - 5:38 pm
“Thanks Laura. I enjoyed learning about pr0n!”
No problem, Jill. Think of it as my humble contribution to the “amazing intellectual journey” Jessica is taking us on
#22 by Marg on January 26, 2009 - 6:38 pm
Definitely need to check out Feedburner. I do check the stats regularly, but not on subscribers other than on Bloglines.
You know, I have just figured out what I have been doing wrong. My last post was gratuitous prawn!
#23 by Violet on January 27, 2009 - 3:37 am
jeez…I am happy to know I am not one of your ex-subscribers
I will always be grateful to you for introducing me to Lisa Kleypas, she is one of my favorite authors now even though I have read only 2 books by her. I remember after reading Seduce me at sunrise, I went to the bookstore to see if i could find anything else by her. I found only one book and it was the first book in this series. I almost jumped and squeled. So thank you.
Your blog is great for anyone who loves Romance.
#24 by Jessica on January 27, 2009 - 6:28 am
I’m glad JenB and NicolaO have confirmed the correlation of nekkidness to hits. Stay tuned for my series of posts on the “Naughtily Naked Debutante Who Loves Double Penetration and the Well Hung Men Who Hang Around Her.”
Laura — Thanks for the pron explanation. I did know about Technorati (I have a button on the sidebar), thanks to Katiebabs’ blog, which has a neat Technorati widget. I find that measure, “Authority”, very interesting, because I am not sure what it really measures.
As for numbers of subscribers, I find those stats interesting, but not enough to take a proactive effort to increase my subscribers. This post was a joke, obviously. I can’t joke like that about things that actually matter to me.
As for that “amazing intellectual journey”, um, yes. Well, these things have to be very carefully planned, as you know. The details are being worked out as I type. Trust me, there is a team of fine minds on the case…
#25 by Laura Vivanco on January 27, 2009 - 6:47 am
“I did know about Technorati (I have a button on the sidebar)”
Of course you did and do. It was very silly and thoughtless of me to suggest or think otherwise and I’m really, really sorry, Professor Jessica. Obviously I’m not checking each page quite as carefully as I should be. Maybe I’ve already missed other vital information that’s required for the “amazing intellectual journey.” I will treat this as a salutary lesson. In future, I will pay attention to the sidebar as well as to each and every word of the text of your posts, because every part of this blog is golden (metaphorically speaking) and packed with intellectual goodness.
Please, please don’t lower my grade. I promise faithfully I’ll try harder in future!
#26 by Jessica on January 27, 2009 - 6:53 am
@ Laura Vivanco:
Yes, it’s academic probation for you, Ms. Vivanco.
I’m sorry — I have a compulsive need to take credit for what I know. Not my best quality.
#27 by Laura Vivanco on January 27, 2009 - 9:15 am
I’m sorry — I have a compulsive need to take credit for what I know. Not my best quality.
In this specific case, I’d written “I’m assuming you know about Technorati?” so I was asking you to “take credit” for what you knew.
I suppose it would be a character flaw (and highly disruptive) if you wandered round your place of work, informing everyone you met of everything you knew. That would verge on the ludicrous, though. I don’t imagine for an instant that you go around telling each and every one of your colleagues that you know all about Technorati, that you’ve discovered Feedburner etc.
#28 by KMont on January 29, 2009 - 4:13 pm
Here I am, late as hell. Again. What Janice said. Upa t the top. This was too funny and I shall go back to lurking now.
#29 by Nik on January 30, 2009 - 2:38 pm
Ha! This open letter is only second to a webcomic “letter to my neglected readers” by Milholland.
I accidentally tripped over this site while searching for a review of Robin Kaye’s “Romero, Romeo”. I can already forsee this site being added to my list of interesting websites